John - so sorry, I don't mean to be confusing. The Sched Delivery Date is
always in the record and displayed when the form is opened. The Actual
Delivery Date may or may not be in the record. If when the form is opened,
there is no Actual Delivery Date, then it should default to the Sched
Delivery Date. Geez, I hope I'm still not being confusing!
I'm seeing a bit through the fog but I still don't understand:
At what point is the Sched Delivery Date entered?
It can't be "always in the record" because when a record is initially created
it's EMPTY. There's NOTHING in the field at the instant the record is created.
If the [sched delivery date] field has a Default value, what is that value and
why can't you just use it as the default for Delivery Date?
If the [sched delivery date] is manually assigned my code should work. Doesn't
it?
If the [sched delivery date] comes from somewhere else, could you explain?
What does OPENING THE FORM have to do with the assignment of values to fields
in the table? Opening a form is like looking out a window: you don't usually
call in the landscaping crew to plant a new tree every time you look out the
window!
All that said... you could put code in the Form's Current event to put data
into the Sched Delivery Date when the user navigates to each record:
Private Sub Form_Current()
If IsNull(Me![Actual Delivery Date]) Then
Me![Actual Delivery Date]) = Me![Sched Delivery Date])
End If
End Sub
but this still seems wierd to me.